


Belonging

by bluehawthorn



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Porn, Angsty Rey, Balance in the force, Bendemption, Dark!Rey, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grey!Jedi, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Motherly talks with General Organa, Oral Sex, POV Rey, Porn with a little bit of Plot, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rendemption, Reylo - Freeform, Sparring, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, The Dark Side of the Force, Throne Sex, Vaginal Sex, sexual awakening, sexual healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 16:54:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13861926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehawthorn/pseuds/bluehawthorn
Summary: Rey finds herself growing increasingly more troubled until eventually she must leave the Resistance for their own safety. She doesn't have anywhere to go...except to Ben.





	Belonging

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo...I wanted to make Rey go dark and write something a bit more intensely smutty for these two. I feel like I partway succeeded, but it eventually got romantic and turned into another Rendemption/Bendemption fic. I can't help myself! 
> 
> Also, if you've read some of my other fandom fics, it would seem I have a thing for throne sex. Oh well. No secrets here! Enjoy :)

The Resistance, what is left of it, has spent the last few months slowly building a base on a site one of Leia's allies has provided for them on an obscure Outer Rim planet. They are starting from little but a few abandoned buildings and some tools that look to be salvaged from someone's junk heap.

Rey wants to help or at least feels like she should, but she cannot seem to focus on the tasks at hand. She does gladly go on supply runs aboard the Falcon whenever asked, relieved to escape out of atmo with nothing but Chewie's quiet, subdued company to distract her from her thoughts.

When they're on the ground though, she finds the bustling teamwork of her friends to be oppressive rather than inspiring, irritating rather than energizing. She always finds herself making excuses and leaving the group to go off by herself and train. 

This is the only place she feels at ease. No one has taught her proper lightsaber forms and Luke's saber is still broken anyways, so she improvises. She battles imaginary enemies with the base of the weapon gripped in her hand and her mind filling in the rest. 

She knows it would be better to have a teacher. Her mind flashes back to the dark snowy forest on Starkiller Base, Ben Solo's eyes blazing with reflected light as he offered to show her the ways of the Force. She shakes the image away. She doesn't want to think about him right now.

There is no one here to train her and anyways, she wants to be alone. Its not like she hasn't taught herself everything else she knows, she thinks bitterly. 

And it seems to be working. She feels as though she is slowly building up the strength and skill to wield this weapon that for some reason has chosen her. Once she finds a way to fix it, that is.

The truth is, she feels as broken as the saber. She practices with it until she's drenched in sweat and her arms are trembling with exhaustion. It's the only way she can find any rest.

Her mind flashes back to Ben's face again. "You come from nothing. You're nothing."

She is flooded with rage and surges forward, imagining she's cutting through a nearby tree with the saber. She wishes she actually could, like when she accidentally sheared through the outcrop of rock overlooking the ocean on Ach-To. It would be more satisfying. 

Not that the tree has done anything to her. And her desert sensibilities still find it almost sacrilegious to harm something green. She remembers her blue lightsaber and Ben's red, slicing through trees on Starkiller Base as he pursued her...how each one had made her flinch in guilt. 

Kriff. Even when she tries not to think of him, there he is. Ben. Kylo. Whoever he is now.

That whole planet had been destroyed, so it's not as though it mattered. These days she wonders if anything matters at all in the end.

The idea had filled her with fear at first. If nothing mattered, how would she keep going? 

All that time waiting for her family on Jakku, all that struggle and loneliness...wasted. Risking her life to turn Ben from the Dark side...wasted. 

Her efforts to find Luke weren't completely fruitless but still, his death felt wasteful. She had hoped for so much more from him and she knows the others did too. She feels somehow to blame for their disappointment - as though she should have tried harder to get him to come with her. Then he wouldn't have needed to die.

And now the Resistance were so few and it felt like all their sacrifice might also be wasted. Despite Leia's encouragement and Finn, Poe and Rose's relentless optimism, what were their chances against an enemy so vast and powerful?

An enemy with Kylo Ren at the helm. Not only had she failed to turn him toward the Light but now he was the Supreme Leader of the First Order.

So much failure.

*****

She had spent the first weeks here overwhelmed with anxiety. She had tried to hide it, put a brave face on for the others. 

Leia probably knew how she was feeling but she was busy enough that Rey was able to easily turn her aside. Every time Leia tried to talk to her she found a way to steer the conversation away from herself and onto something about the base. Leia seemed glad for the redirection. She likely didn't have time for coddling people right now. 

And Rey didn't want to be coddled. Why would she? She'd never been coddled in her life.

In time, the fear had mostly subsided. Now, she was angry. All the time.

At Luke for refusing to come with her to help them and for ending up dead. At Poe for rash insubordinate decisions that cost many Resistance fighters lives. At the whole First Order. At Ben, of course, although her feelings about him were...mixed. Another thing to try not to think about. 

Mostly, at her parents. All her dreams and fantasies about them and here was the brutal, sad truth: they had sold her to Unkar Plutt and condemned her to a life of scavenging for her survival. 

Not that she couldn't have escaped. At first, the promise of a meal now and then was enough to keep her enslaved to him, but it was not as if he chained, confined or surveilled her. He hadn't even housed her. 

She had probably returned the investment he made in her before she even turned seven. She could have left and he probably wouldn't have even bothered coming after her.

But she hadn't. She had clung to her naive belief that her parents would return for her one day and sold her life for rations. 

Maybe she shouldn't be angry at her parents; maybe she should be angry at herself. She had made up stories about them rather than face the truth. She had lived on foolish hope.

As time went on her anger didn't abate; it grew. In time she felt angrier and angrier at the people around her, the Resistance itself. Weren't they also living on foolish hope? 

*****

She began hating the need to go to the common room to eat lunch and dinner with the others. She hated listening to their inane chatter while she churned with turmoil inside. She hated them asking her what was wrong. She started skipping meals, preferring to go hungry.

One night when she didn't go for dinner, there is a knock on the door of her chambers. Rey sighs in annoyance but reluctantly says, "Come in." It would be worse to ignore or refuse them entry, whoever it was. It would only raise more questions and concerns.

And there, peering past the door with her kind eyes, is the General. She steps inside slowly and comes to sit beside Rey on her bunk.

Leia looks around the small room and Rey down at her hands. After a few moments, Leia speaks, her voice warm. "I am very worried about you."

Rey isn't sure what to say. She goes with: "I know." Because she does know. They are all worried about her. She hates that too.

"Do you want me to tell me what's going on? I'm a very good listener." Leia turns to look at her with a small sad smile, but Rey can't meet her gaze. 

Something awful is rising up in her, the huge ravenous monster of lack that has always been buried inside her. It rears up from the great mother-shaped hole inside her. 

The grief is like a physical assault. Her throat constricts but she fights it, summoning her anger again instead. It is easier that way. Easier than the loss.

They sit in silence for a while, Leia waiting patiently. Eventually she says, "Ok. I won't push. But know that we're not meant to suffer alone Rey. That is the path to the Dark Side.

"We're meant to lean on one another, hold one another up. Come to me when you're ready, or turn to one of your friends. We care about you. 

"In the meantime, we have to find a better way for you to channel these feelings of yours. I don't want to lose you. We've all lost enough."

She feels herself softening but Leia is already leaving, closing the door gently behind her. The anger surges up again in her absence and Rey grabs the broken lightsaber and heads out into the fading light to lose herself in physical exertion.

*****

That night she dreams, again, of the cave below Ach-To. It is calling to her. It has something else to show her. Something important. 

She knows she shouldn't, but the longing to go to it is too strong. She is kneeling at the edge. She is being sucked in, terror rushing through every nerve. She's in the water and it's so cold. It's just like how she remembers it. 

But this time, before she can break the surface something is wrapping around her ankles and pulling her down. She struggles to get away, using every ounce of her strength, but its grip is unmovable and she's being dragged into the darkness. 

She wakes up frantic, sobbing. It is a long time before she can find sleep again.

*****

The next day at lunch Leia announces that in order to keep up their skills in combat, they will all begin sparring with each other. In the late afternoon, before dinner, Rey and Poe Dameron will be the first combatants. She lays out a few ground rules and tells them what time to meet. 

A murmur of what sounds like excitement goes through the small crowd. Poe looks over at her and gives her a little smile and nod. She returns the nod, but can't bring herself to smile.

Later when they gather, the sun is still beating down hot. The dirt is dry baked and reddish brown beneath their feet. At Leia's instruction, she and Poe step into the makeshift ring created by the bodies of everyone else circled around them. They are each handed a bowstaff.

Leia repeats the rules, but Rey can't hear anything she says. Something is thrumming through her head and everything outside her immediate focus sounds distant and muffled, like it is underwater.

Her immediate focus is on the weight of the staff, which feels familiar and pleasing in her hands. And it is razor sharp on Poe. She sees him drop into a fighting stance and lunges at him so quickly that it catches him off guard. 

She's not sure whether the signal to begin sparring has even been given and she doesn't care. He parries her away but just barely, his footing clumsy. He's on the defensive and she already has the upper hand.

It feels so good to be fighting against something real. Every impact of wood on wood sings through her. As she spins and swings, she can see that Poe is beginning to sweat. She presses harder. 

At one point she knocks him down in the dirt, but steps away rather than take her victory. She doesn't want this to be over so soon. When he gets up, Poe isn't smiling anymore. There is no trace of his usual swagger or smugness. He redoubles his efforts.

He slams her back a few times and she loses ground. The anger pounding through her crescendoes until her vision narrows even further. Poe isn't her friend anymore. He is an enemy to be defeated.

He lands a lucky blow on her thigh and the pain feeds her rage. Now she is ready to end this.

As if from a distance she hears herself yelling and the Force explodes from her, sweeping Poe's feet out from under him and pinning him to the ground. His staff clatters away from him and hers whips up to his throat to signify that she has beaten him.

Her heart thundering, she slowly comes back to the present, her senses widening. She hears gasps all around her and realizes that her staff isn't near his throat, it's pressed against it. He is completely still, not even daring to breathe lest she crush his windpipe. His eyes look bewildered and hurt and a little afraid.

She pulls her staff back quickly, her chest heaving. Everyone is gathered around them, silent now as if in shock. She whirls around, her eyes squinting against the glare of the sun. What is she doing? 

She runs.

She can hear Chewie calling to her plaintively, asking her to stop, but she doesn't. She runs straight onto the Falcon. The Resistance isn't safe with her here anymore.

*****

As soon as she leaves atmo, she knows where she's going. She's going to the one person who will understand what she's going through: Ben. If anyone can handle this thing she's becoming its him. 

Plus, she wants to see him. She feels a kind of reckless yearning inside that allows her to admit to herself that she misses him. More than that, she _wants _. She needs something, to dull all this pain.__

____

____

All it takes is checking a few comm frequencies to find them. The First Order doesn't exactly need to hide anymore, especially with the Resistance in shambles.

She puts the ship in hyperdrive and goes back to get a change of clothes. She has a dark gray tunic and trousers on board and figures they'll do. They're cleaner than what she has on. She takes a quick shower in the 'fresher and then changes into them, slinging her belt around her hips.

She looks at herself in the mirror. She decides to leave her hair undone for once. She scrounges around in some of the drawers and finds some ancient kohl that probably once belonged to Leia from back when she and Han were travelling around the galaxy together.

She feels a pang thinking of them but brushes it away and embraces the cold burn of her anger again. This war has nothing to do with her. She doesn't owe her allegiance to anyone.

She carefully outlines her eyes in black. There's a lip tint there too, and she tries it. It's too garish for her, but when she wipes it away her lips are left a dark pink that makes them look like they're swollen from being kissed. She likes the effect a lot. It makes her feel powerful, sensual.

She puts her shoulders back and looks in the mirror one last time, enjoying what she sees. She thinks that Ben will too.

She hesitates for a moment, realizing the full weight of what she's doing. She tries to brush it off too, but it lingers. 

If she wants Ben why shouldn't she have him? Why shouldn't they have each other? She's sure he wants her too. Didn't he ask her to rule at his side? 

And yet...he's a murderer. She understands some of the reasons he became Kylo Ren now - Leia has filled her in on how Snoke preyed on him from the time he was a boy - but still, aren't the atrocities he's committed beyond any excuse? She knows that there is still Light in him because she's seen it. He saved her life, but...

No. No more of this wavering. Besides, it wasn't as though she planned to become his dark bride. She had no intention of joining him. She just...didn't have anywhere else to go.

*****

She feels the ship shudder out of hyperdrive and goes back to the controls. The First Order are hailing her. She tells them who she is and who she is here to see, and then a few tense minutes of waiting passes. 

There is a small chance that Ben will simply order them to destroy her. Or not order them _not _to destroy her. She hadn't really thought of that in her rush to get here.__

____

____

Eventually the Falcon is caught in a tractor beam that pulls it on board a Star Destroyer. Rey sighs in relief.

This time, as she disembarks the Falcon, Ben isn't there to greet her when she lands but just like last time there are Stormtroopers with cuffs. They slap them on her and lead her through the ship for what seems like a long time. 

She is flanked on every side by troopers. There must be fifteen of them. It's like a slow marching, creepy monochromatic death parade, she thinks. 

Obviously Ben has told them to be very careful. She kind of likes that she makes him cautious in this way; that he doesn't underestimate her. He is one of the few people who has caught glimpses of the full depth of her abilities.

Eventually they come to a large set of doors. They slide open and Rey can see a high ceilinged, mostly empty room. Near the back and up a small set of stairs is Ben, sitting in a throne not unlike Snoke's. 

It is smaller than Snoke's was though, and so is the room. There are no Praetorian guards, no red walls. It's less ostentatious. It suits him, she thinks. Dark and somber but also elegant with its shining black walls and chrome accents.

The Stormtroopers lead her into the room, still encircling her. As they take her closer to him, she can feel Ben prodding gently at her mind. She assumes it is to make sure that she is not there to assassinate him. She doesn't resist. 

His eyes widen slightly at what he finds, although he keeps his face mostly impassive. He nods his head toward the troopers and orders them, "Leave us." They do.

They're alone. He uses the Force to open the cuffs and they clatter to the ground. She rubs a bit at her wrists and finds herself smiling. This is exactly where she wants to be right now.

*****

That feeling of reckless hunger is growing inside her, buzzing through her limbs. She wants to forget everything. She wants this man before her - who is staring down at her with a look of wariness mixed with curiosity on his face - to make her forget. 

As she walks toward him she is reminded just how tall he is, how broad. As she reaches the first step he stands, towering over her, and his hand goes to the lightsaber hilt on his belt as if out of instinct. 

Despite what he saw in her mind, he still doesn't fully understand her intentions. Good. She wants to surprise him.

She summons the Force and uses it to push him back down to sitting, removing his arm from his saber and pinning it, along with the other, to the throne's arms. As she does, she registers briefly that the Force feels different than other times she's used it. It had in the fight against Poe as well. It feels denser, oilier. 

_Was she using the Dark Side? ___

____

____

She feels a frisson of fear, but puts the thought aside. Right now she refuses to think about it. The emotions that have carried her here are like fuel burning through her. They propel her forward on this path, regardless of the cost.

Ben also shows a flash of real fear on his face as he struggles to move his arms, but it changes quickly to a different kind of shock as she reaches him and climbs immediately onto his lap.

"Hello, Ben," she purrs.

"Rey," he chokes out. "This is...unexpected."

She leans down and grazes her mouth and nose over the side of his neck and his jaw. "Pleasantly so?" she breathes into his ear.

Ben makes a small noise in his throat and she can feel a shiver run through him. He nods, yes. 

"May I continue?" He hesitates and then nods again, swallowing hard. 

"Mmmmmm," she hums. "Good." She'd rather not waste any time.

She rises up on her knees so that she's above him. She runs her hands over his shoulders and up his neck into his hair. The cloth of his tunic is unexpectedly soft and his hair is just as soft as she expected it would be. 

He grunts when she pulls it, tilting his head back. She kisses him, and he tastes smoky and dark and sweet. 

At first he holds back, returning her kisses in a small, tame way. She can feel that he's still reticent, trying to read her and understand what is happening. This won't do. She wants him wild; wants all the intensity she knows he's capable of focused on her.

She pulls his hair harder and parts his lips with hers, sweeping her tongue into his mouth. That's all it takes. He groans, straining against the restraints she still holds him in. That's better. 

She uses it to tease him, pulling just out of the reach of his mouth and then leaning down to flick her tongue against his or pull at his bottom lip with her teeth. His head tips back and he nips at her, but she doesn't let him get close enough. 

When the anticipation builds until they're both breathing hard, she drops down so that their mouths crash together. The feeling of his wide mouth beneath hers, his strong tongue winding around hers...it loosens something in her that has felt pulled painfully tight for far too long.

She lowers herself further on him, leaning into the hard planes of his body. She finds his erection and rubs herself up against it with a subtle movement of her pelvis. He moans and she pulls his face down so that she can swallow the sound of it.

His face is already wrecked with desire. She feels the same - she is so aroused it's nearly painful. Her belly is hot and liquid with it, her pussy drenched and aching.

She looks him over. He's breathing quickly with anticipation but he sits back and waits patiently to see what she'll do next. That feral grace she's watched in his movements is evident even when he's mostly still. It's in the way he sits, the way the power of his body translates into his posture, his presence. 

There is no self consciousness or doubt in how he inhabits it. It's honed. It's a weapon. She wonders what that strength will be liked, turned toward pleasure rather than violence. The small glimpses she's seen so far in his kisses are exhilarating.

Holding his gaze, she uses the Force to rip the front of his tunic open. She shoves the halves of it back to bare as much of him as she can. He sucks in a breath as her hands begin to roam over his wide chest, his ribs, his muscle-ridged stomach. 

She takes her time. She's both daydreamed and actually dreamed about him like this quite a number of times since she saw him bare-chested through the bond. Now that it's real, she wants to enjoy it.

He's stunning. His skin is pale and smooth around his scars, which only somehow make him more desirable. Like her, this is someone who has not lived an easy life.

The look he's giving her is intoxicating. She curves her fingers into claws, scratches down his torso. He flinches, but his eyes only burn hotter. His dark hair is messy from her hands raking through it, disheveled beautifully around his face.

She leans forward to lick and nibble at his neck and then makes her way down him with her mouth. She pays special attention to his nipples, loving the way he whimpers and arches as she laves them with her tongue. She takes one in her teeth and pulls at it before sucking hard, enjoying the sounds that come out of him when she does. 

Then she keeps going, climbing down on the floor in front of him and placing open-mouthed kisses along his navel and hipbones. The lower down she gets the more he shudders. Glancing up at him she sees that his lips are parted and his pupils are blown wide. His breathing is rapid and shaky. 

She likes him like this. A lot. 

"Don't be afraid," she says, savouring the reversal of roles. "I feel it too."

She takes off his boots, drawing out the process a little just to see him pant and squirm. Then she rises up on her knees and finds the latch on his trousers. She nudges him up and he lifts his hips so that she can peel them off.

She takes a moment just to drop onto her knees and take him in. He's delicious like this. The most powerful man in the galaxy, exposed and at her mercy. He certainly doesn't seem to mind, looking at her as though she is the only being left in that galaxy.

She leans forward and rubs her hands along his thighs, eliciting a growl. She shoots him a humid glance and leans even further forward, taking his cock in her hand. It is long and pale and gently curved to the left. It feels heavy and warm against her palm.

She leans forward and licks up the shaft of it. His hair is tousled all around his face now as he looks down at her. He is breathing raggedly and his eyes are heavily lidded. Watching him through her lashes she runs her tongue over the head of him and then sucks him back into her mouth.

She's never done this before, but she trusts her instincts. She can sense that his mind is defenceless, so she opens hers a bit toward it, to tune in better to what he is feeling and focus her attentions. 

His pleasure hits her like a wall of flame and it's so overwhelming, she almost slams her mind shut. She takes a few deep breaths instead and slowly grows more accustomed to it. She is truly doing something to this man, she thinks with a certain amount of satisfaction and pride.

She twists her tongue around him and pulls up and then swallows him back again. She takes him even deeper this time. She repeats this, finding a rhythm. She wraps the length of him that won't fit in her mouth with her hand, stroking it up and down at the same speed as she works him with her tongue and lips.

He is gritting his teeth and begins to writhe against her Force-hold on his arms. She doesn't free him and he doesn't retaliate in any way with his own abilities. She knows that he's surrendering to her and it floods her with lust, like a river breaking its banks. It's unlike anything she's ever felt before.

His hips are bucking up, so she adds another band of the Force, holding him in place. She sucks him faster and harder, wanting to take him as close to the edge as she can before she stops. 

He is moaning uncontrollably now, his head tipping against the back of the throne. Sensing it through the Force is unbelievable enough. She can't imagine what he's actually feeling. It's like a lightning strike - scorching and blinding in its intensity.

She has him sliding between her tongue and the roof of her mouth, squeezing him tight and slick as she moves her head forward and back. She senses his orgasm drawing near and can almost feel it herself. She doesn't want to stop, wants to find her own release through him, but she feels him tensing and knows it is time. 

She reluctantly pulls off of his cock and licks her lips, watching him regain his composure. It takes him a few moments, during which she releases the band around his hips and they continue rutting a few times as though he can't help it, his breathing a bit frantic before he masters himself.

When he does so (and she's done a bit of calming down herself), she stands up and begins stripping off her clothing. At first she does it thoughtlessly, but as she notices him watching her, his eyes caressing each area of her flesh as she reveals it to him, she slows down.

It's a heady thing, his hungry eyes on her. She's never thought of her body as much more than utilitarian, but tonight it's something else. Tonight it feels primal and potent.

The room they're in adds to it too; this sleek-walled center of his power, the First Order's power. And yet right now, it belongs to her, as does he.

When she's naked, she gives him a moment to stare and then climbs back into his lap. He is waiting for her, his body vibrating with barely contained desire. She can sense that its excruciating for him not to be able to touch her, to have no control. At the same time, she can also sense that it adds to his excitement.

She straddles him, taking his cock in her hand and dragging it a few times through her wetness. He feels firm and silky against her. His mouth opens and his eyes close. He lets out several hard shuddering breaths and groans her name.

His eyes open again and fix on her face as she positions him at her entrance and rocks the tip of him into her. She lowers herself onto him at a pace that feels wonderful for her - like her body is blossoming open around him - but she knows is likely torturous for him.

Just how torturous is evidenced in the way he is straining his hips up to meet her. When he does she pulls away a little, not allowing him set the pace at which he penetrates her. She is in control here. 

Soon the muscles in his forearms are corded and he is breathing almost as though he is injured. She prods his mind to be sure she's not somehow hurting him and can sense that it's just the torment of pleasure dealt slow. She decides to use it as a chance to torment him just a little more for fun.

She stills and he groans, a desperate sound. She feigns concern, "You look like you're in pain. Should I stop?"

"Force, no. Don't stop," he grinds out, voice ragged and even lower than usual. It backfires on her because she feels the sound of it right between her legs like a spike of heat.

It makes it easier to take him. She slips the rest of the way down until he's filling her, muscles she didn't even know she had easing around the intrusion of him. He's big inside her and she hasn't done this much before, but she adjusts quickly. She begins to move and Ben's relief is palpable. 

She wraps her arms around his neck for leverage and pulls herself up until the head of his cock is just barely inside her. Then she drops her hips back so that he is buried to the hilt. The sensation spirals right up through her spine like a streak of light.

Oh yes, she likes this. Her body takes over and she is riding him, completely abandoning herself to the feeling of it. His body meets hers as best it can while still restrained. She kisses him, a clash of tongues, her hips swaying so that his cock slides in and out of her. It turns her pelvis into a molten pool of sensation, hot and thick. 

Everything ceases to exist except his body under hers, until his mind skids along the boundaries of hers and they collide. Her consciousness expands to encompass his and somehow together they are bigger than the sum of their parts. 

It's just like on the island, when Luke urged her to reach out with her feelings. The Force isn't just one thing, and neither are they. It's all in them, one great seething cycle that feeds on itself, never ending. Dark, light, life, death, peace, violence, creation, destruction.

Something is shifting in her. Somewhere in her bones, in her very cells, something is at work. It is rearranging her in some fundamental way. It hurts but it's also good. In its wake she knows she will be changed. It is all happening for the sake of balance.

She can hear herself crying out. She releases his arms from the Force hold, and they come around her immediately, strong and warm. They steady her amidst all she's feeling; against this relentless storm that is building inside her, fierce and cleansing.

At some point he lifts her up and moves them around so that she's sitting on the throne and he's kneeling in front of her. Her arms are behind her, holding her up, and her legs are wrapped around his waist. His hands press into her thighs, her ass, pulling her onto him with each push of his hips.

He can fuck her more deeply like this and the impact of each of his thrusts sends shockwaves of pleasure through her. The angle makes him press against her clit with every stroke. 

He reaches for her and one of his hands tangles in her hair. "Rey," he rasps. His eyes are piercing but also gentle. He leans down and draws her into a kiss just as she begins to peak, her body tensing and shuddering.

He pulls back and holds a steady rhythm, watching her. The last thing she sees is an expression that looks like wonder on his face before her orgasm hits her like a blaster bolt and her vision goes red. She is coming apart. 

"Harder!" she hears herself cry as the convulsions sear through her and he obeys, feeding his cock into her again and again. Noises she barely recognizes as her own are wrung from her as wave after wave of sensation pummels her.

Just as the intensity of it begins to wane for her, he finds his own release, his hips stuttering. His head is bent toward her chest and he is making a guttural sound that seems to come from deep inside him. 

"Look at me," she manages to say, her voice barely working. He does, and the vulnerability in his face steals the little breath she has left. 

His cock is throbbing inside her. A few more strokes and he collapses against her. 

*****

Both of them are breathing as though they have just fought, lightly sheened in sweat. Her body feels like it is glowing and every once in a while an aftershock pulses through the core of her.

Eventually he looks up at her through his hair, almost sheepishly. She's surprised despite herself. He looks like the boy he must have been, before all this happened to him.

He lifts her again, this time sitting back down and sweeping her into his lap. They stay there, intertwined and catching their breath, for a long time. She's lying sideways across him now, her legs cradled by one of his arms and over the side of the throne.

After a long time passes, he speaks. "Rey, this isn't like you. Not that I'm...complaining exactly. But what's wrong?" 

He smooths her hair back from her face and the affection in the gesture makes her feel a lot of different feelings at once. She settles on anger, seemingly her current default. She sits up on him, glaring a challenge into his face. "Everything! Everything is wrong!"

She tries to pull away from him, but he grabs her wrists in his huge hands and holds her there. Physically she's no match for him like this. He's twice her size.

She could probably make him let go with the Force but she doesn't. She's not sure that she truly wants him to let her go. She's not sure what she wants at all.

"Come here." He pulls her against his chest and she makes a few more halfhearted attempts to get away. She batters his chest a few times with her fists and then she is crying, her body wracked with sobs that bend her spine, make her curl into herself.

Ben wraps his arms around her and holds her through it, not saying anything. It feels as though it goes on forever and will never end. Years and years of unshed tears well up in her, oceanic.

She's not sure how much time has passed when it finally begins to calm. Eventually she comes back to herself enough to think for a moment of how remarkable and absurd it is that she is crying, naked on the lap of Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order. In his throne room no less. 

Not that that is truly who he is. She looks up at him through wet eyelashes, hiccoughing loudly. No, this man looking down at her with soft eyes is Ben Solo through and through.

She wraps her arms around his neck and lays her head down on his shoulder. He runs his hands gently over her back in soothing circles as she cries some more. When it passes, she sits up a little and rubs at her eyes. 

He tips her head up with a hand under her chin and looks at her. "Rey?" He pauses, his eyes searching her face. "You did just...well, ravish me." He gives her a small smile, his eyes pleading with her to trust him. "You can tell me what's happening. You don't have to if you don't want to, but if you do..."

She smiles too, but she also starts to cry again, her chin quivering against his fingers. She doesn't know what to tell him. What comes out, her voice shaking is, "I don't belong anywhere."

"Hmmm," he says softly, his lips quirking at the edges. "Believe it or not, I have some experience with this problem."

She laughs a bit through her tears. Yes, she supposes he would. "Any wisdom to share?"

Surprisingly he chuckles. She's never heard him laugh before. "No. I was hoping you might have discovered some already. You seem like a quick learner."

She laughs again, considering him in a new light. "Well," she says, "Don't get me wrong...you look very good on a throne, but I do know for sure that you don't belong here."

He raises an eyebrow as if encouraging her to say more. "The First Order is all about...well, order. It's sterile and dead. That's not you." 

She puts one of her palms flat against his chest, feels his heartbeat drumming there, vital and strong. "You're chaotic and alive and full of feeling, and...and I mean that in a good way."

His face is serious again and after a moment he nods, as though he's decided something. "I know. I've never belonged here. It's why I asked you to join me. So we could create something new."

"But I thought you wanted me to join you here. You know I never could."

He nods again. "I've had time to reconsider that."

It makes her happy, to hear this. She hasn't felt happiness in what feels like a very long time, but here it is, buoyant and bright in her chest. 

She snuggles up against him. She knows she should ask him to elaborate but she wants to taste the moment instead. His fingertips stroke lightly up and down her arm.

A while passes like this and then he says quietly, "We could...leave together. Figure things out as we go."

Her head snaps up to look at him. "Really? Would you do that?"

He nods, and bends to press his lips to her forehead. "Yes. I think I'm ready."

She smiles. "Yes." She is laughing, turning around on his lap so that she can take his face in her hands and plant kisses all over it. "Yes." 

His arms come up around her, and his mouth finds hers. Her anger is far away. Instead she feels a small, but persistent sense of something else taking root in her. Something like relief, or maybe even hope. 

Maybe they _could _create something new. Who knew? Maybe they could even find some measure of belonging, together.__

**Author's Note:**

> Comments welcomed and appreciated. 
> 
> I obviously own nothing from Star Wars.


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